The historical relationship between the First and the Third, the West and the rest, the North and the South has been occupied by symbols of superiority of one over the other. The inherent notion of the West being the center of civilization, while the "other" being scripted as the primitive served the logic of colonialism. Spaces elsewhere could be occupied and controlled under the very argument that they needed development to be brought to them, that they needed to be liberated by the White men and women who only wanted to do good. In the early history of colonialism, this wanting to do good was embedded in the desire of the Christian missionaries to convert the savages, and lift the burden of the soul. The contemporary rhetoric of neocolonialism has replaced the cross with the white coat, with the power of Science and Development that seek to emancipate the Third World. Once again, the symbol of the white coat utilizes the trope of emancipation to bring Third World spaces under the hegemonic control of the West.
In light of the discussion we had during our advisee meeting on Friday about being strategic in our means as critical scholars I was struck by the words of Lenin who emphasizes the role of the intellectual. He says, "The history of all countries shows that the working class, exclusively by its own effort, is able to develop only trade-union consciousness, i.e., it may itself realize the necessity for combining in unions, for fighting against the employers and for striving to compel the government to pass necessary labor legislation, etc. The theory of socialism, however, grew out of the philosophic, historical representatives of the propertied classes, the intellectuals." (pg. 74) This idea of the bourgeois socialist intelligentsia as an instrument of raising consciousness and fomenting dissent is an ideal one I am sure but in contemporary times we, the academics, forming a substantial part of the "intellectual elite", occupy a unique position which forces us into &
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